“Now, normally no one would be taking this winding path. It takes too long for people who are on a schedule. Do you know why you do this?”
“Because if someone is taking the same winding path as me, that means they are following me?”
“Correct!” Mr. Collins said happily. “Remember this: Potential, Probable, Actual. If they make the same first turn as you, they are ‘potentially’ following you. It may just be a coincidence, as they may have needed to take that turn anyway. If they follow you on the next turn, however, it’s probable that they are following you. And if they follow you on the third, well, you know they are actually following you.”
“What do I do if that happens?” Lena said, a little scared.
“Just make a note of it,” he answered. “Until that point, however, you are going to build a daily routine, and all of the steps you take on it. Every day you will do more-or-less the same thing, for most of the day. You will be the most boring person in existence. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Buy a puppy,” Matt said. “Puppies like to run around and get into stuff. They shit in places they shouldn’t, and run up to random people. This is a great opportunity to look around normally.”
“That’s actually a good idea,” Lena laughed.
“For now, just be boring,” Mr. Collins laughed. “Get to know all of your neighbors. Recognize their routines as well as yours. Know when they missed a day at the coffeeshop, or when someone isn’t reading the paper like he or she normally is. Notice when two people are talking that normally don’t. Make sure that you use the sidewalks for walking—that’s what they are there for. Cross the street at stop-lights, look at things in windows—not cracks in the wall or the sky—and make sure that you watch for people that are doing these things. Watch for people walking on lawns, or looking at walls, or looking around corners. Just… watch. You will be surprised at the things you see.”
“Yes, Sir,” Lena said. On the one hand, her first mission sounded boring, but she could sense it was just the beginning. It was introductory training like she had done before with Patrick.
“Second” he continued, “always remember this above everything else: your job is to know if you are being followed. And if so, by whom. Your job is not to lose them, confuse them, frustrate them or otherwise. If you are being followed, it’s much easier to recognize if it’s the same people doing it every time. And if you do recognize them out on a stroll, it’s much easier to convince them you aren’t up to no good by choosing to do boring things instead of whatever you had planned.”
“We can always meet some other time,” Matt chimed in. “I’d much rather have a meeting delayed than have a dead agent because that agent really wanted to please us. Even worse is to have other agents exposed as well. So, if you are being followed… just miss the meeting and don’t sweat it. We’ll find out.”
“I understand,” Lena said, honestly.
“Besides,” he said smirking, “once we know you are being followed, we can do something about it. We are counter-intelligence, after all.”
“Ok,” Lena half-smiled.
“Now, let’s get down to the meat-and-potatoes of what we need you specifically for.” Mr. Collins spoke, “Normally, professional intelligence agencies pick their officers from the Special Forces community. This is because on top of needing folks who can talk to people and make friends easily, they also need a whole litany of skills we simply don’t have time to teach them: using a compass, using a gun, basic survival—that sort of thing. It’s a kinetic world, and sometimes we need the right person right now—not after a two-year school spent teaching them things that the military already could’ve.
“Luckily, since this means that most of our officers already have these skills, and because we’re civilians that Geneva Conventions don’t apply to, it’s we who are charged with what’s referred to as ‘Covert Action’. There’s many different forms that Covert Action can take, but most falls under one major umbrella: making things happen in the political realm by pulling the strings of the mass populace. This is something that musicians happen to be uniquely suited for, which is where you and Matt come in.”
“Congratulations!” Matt said, as he sardonically saluted Lena. “We’re all gonna die!”
“Now,” Mr. Collins laughed, “we aren’t going to teach you how to fast-rope or jump out of helicopters. As I just said, we don’t have the time for that level of training, and Matt is already plenty good at that sort of nonsense. Luckily, we don’t need to teach you anything like that, because you have something far more important to us than the skills that our agents already possess: intimate first-hand knowledge of the culture we are trying to initiate covert action within. Sure, Matt here speaks German, but he’s British. He doesn’t speak East-German, or East Berliner. He doesn’t know the slang, the cultural references, the favorite beers, or the reason why you root for one sports team over another.”
“Why would that matter?” Lena asked honestly.
“Well, let me ask you this…” Mr. Collins started as he waved his hand at her, “What’s up?”
“The sky?” Lena responded, feeling somewhat silly.
“Right,” Mr. Collins laughed. “In America, no young person ever says ‘Hello’ as a formal greeting. They say, ‘What’s up?’ as common slang. To a German, that’s an utterly meaningless statement. This is a lesson we learned in WWII when American, British and French agents were found out by the Nazi SS during meals—the Americans held their forks and spoons differently than the Europeans did.”
“Really?” Lena boggled.
“Oh yes. Believe it or not, Americans, Germans, and Japanese, all shake hands differently. You would expect a supposed Japanese native in Japan to greet other Japanese the way his fellow countrymen did, with curtesy and sincere respect for the other person’s space. If, instead, this Japanese native grabbed the other’s hand and pumped it in a display of dominance, well, you might very well have a non-native— and probable American—on your hands.
“Of course, you would then wonder why this individual is posing as a Japanese native if he has very little grasp of their customs. Believe it or not, other cultures eat differently too. This extends not only to local cuisine, but tastes: Germans prefer bitter tasting snacks, whereas Americans eat excessively sweet food. Whole South-east Asian cultures might eat foods considered taboo in Europe, such as eyeballs or placenta, while in Iceland fermented shark is completely normal.
“In America, we bring our heads down to our food, while in the rest of the world they bring the food up. It’s these little idiosyncrasies that we have to account for. With you working for us in the GDR, however, we already know they are accounted for because it’s something you innately know.
“Now, originally, we had a different agent planned out for this covert action. He was a very strong asset, and wonderful to work with. Unfortunately, a Soviet GRU counter-intelligence campaign ended up putting him in a position where we now need to rescue him before we can get the work officially started. I believe you already know a young man by the name of Hans Schmidt?”
Vivika was breathing hard as she stumbled down a dark alleyway. Under normal circumstances, this would be comfortable for her. She was of ‘the filth’—the undercurrent of the under-represented and under-noticed—an untouchable, by polite standards. Alleyways meant no less and no more to her than a roaring fire warming a house inside a fireplace, or burning the house down along with its inhabitants. A life poorly-lived in austerity and brief spurts of performance anxiety enabled her to sleep as well as she could, wherever her head lay that evening.